In a genre whose relationship to black artists has often
proved controversial, the track marked one of several historical achievements
when weekly chart rankings refreshed on Tuesday.
Texas Hold ‘Em – released simultaneously with the single 16
Carriages in a surprise album announcement during the Super Bowl – is Beyoncé’s
first time topping the country charts.
It has also made her the second solo female artist – with no
accompanying featured artists – to debut at number one, after Taylor Swift
achieved the feat in 2021 with her re-recordings of Love Story and All Too
Well.
Beyoncé is also the first woman to top both the Hot Country
Songs and Hot R&B/Hip-Hip Songs charts since the lists began in 1958.
Justin Bieber, Billy Ray Cyrus, Ray Charles and Morgan Wallen are the only
other artists who have led both charts.
The Hot Country Songs chart is a “multi-metric” chart that
combines US sales, streams, and radio airplay, much like Billboard’s primary
Hot 100 chart.
Tuesday’s charts reflected the seven days leading up to
February 15th – which means Texas Hold ‘Em, released February 11th, achieved
its slots after just four days of tracking.
In that time, it was streamed 19.2 million times and
downloaded 39,000 times in the US, according to entertainment data company
Luminate. It debuted at number two on the Hot 100 chart, whereas the
superstar’s other new track 16 Carriages debuted at number 38 on the Hot 100
and number nine on Hot Country Songs.
Both singles will appear on Beyoncé’s second instalment of
her Renaissance trilogy, set for release on March 29th.
The country chart achievements come after an online
firestorm last week around Texas Hold ‘Em’s categorisation as a country track.
A country radio station in Oklahoma initially declined to
play a request for Beyoncé’s new single, though it later changed its tune after
a viral campaign on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The station said that it hadn’t yet been served the file for
the track from Beyoncé’s label when it received the request. Texas Hold ‘Em is
now officially being promoted to country radio, according to Billboard.
The song has become Beyoncé’s first appearance on
Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, where it debuted at number 54. Unlike Hot
Country Songs, Country Airplay measures only radio play.
Country music’s relationship to black artists has often
sparked debate. In a high-profile example from 2019, rapper Lil Nas X’s viral
country-trap fusion Old Town Road was removed from Billboard’s Hot Country
Songs after it topped the chart.
Chart compilers claimed it wasn’t country enough – despite
its banjo instrumentation and lyrical content about horse riding.
“While Old Town Road incorporates references to country and cowboy imagery, it does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version,” Billboard wrote at the time.
In 2016, Beyoncé’s heavily country-inspired track Daddy
Lessons was rejected by the Recording Academy’s country music committee, making
it ineligible for country Grammys.
She later played the song at the Country Music Association
awards with the Dixie Chicks in a surprise performance that sparked a fresh
round of discourse around country music’s politics and ambiguous
classifications.